All posts tagged with cats

Cats and women have long been connected in the public imagination. From ancient Egypt, to the Middle Ages, to the turn of the twentieth century, to the present – there has been an association between felines and femininity.   One of the most glaring examples of this connection is the choice of pronouns used to describe cats.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States and Europe, cats were just beginning to be seen as household pets. Previously, they were viewed as biological specimens for medical study, muses for literature, and mousers that roamed around killing rodents. The way that people saw cats often involved a comparison with dogs. But how different are these two species?

Harrison Weir, President of the National Cat Club, Judge at the first cat show in London, and all-around cat lover and enthusiast. This book of the week, an 1889 work entitled, Our Cats and All About Them: Their Varieties, Habits, and Management; and for Show, The Standard of Excellence and Beauty; Described and Pictured by Harrison Weir, F.R.H.S., was written by Harrison Weir, President of the National Cat Club which he formed in 1887. What is equally delightful to Weir’s loving descriptions of cats, their looks and their behavior, are his beautiful illustrations of cats throughout the book.

If you are part of the majority of people who are “dog people” this post may not be for you. Please redirect to our dog book of the week post here. Neutral folks, you can stick around. Now that we have weeded out all of those pesky dog lovers, let’s get on to a book that is the cat’s meow! Frances Simpson, author of several books on cats at the turn of the century was a serious feline aficionado. Author of The Book of the Cat (1902), Simpson put together one of the most comprehensive resources on cats around. Who knew you could write 32 chapters on cats?

This week is Big Cats Week, and to celebrate we’re featuring a book in our collection that has some of the loveliest engravings of these majestic felines that we’ve ever seen. The book, Engravings of Lions, Tigers, Panthers, Leopards, Dogs, etc. (1853), by Thomas Landseer, contains 39 plates. The first twenty – of lions, tigers, panthers, and leopards – are engravings by Thomas Landseer after original works by Stubbs, Rubens, Spilsbury, Rembrant, Reydinger, and Edwin Landseer.

This week for our book of the week, we feature a title that Charles Darwin himself called “one of the great monuments of science in the 19th century.” The book? Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale(1835-47), by Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny. The work chronicles d’Orbigny’s travels to South America for the Paris Museum from 1826-1833. As a result of this voyage, d’Orbigny returned to Paris with more than 10,000 natural history specimens.